A reminder that many fascinating folk reside on Memory Lane.
With generous selections from a half-century’s work, veteran New Yorker reporter Ross (Here But Not Here, 1998, etc.) reflects on writing, celebrities, her career, friends, and family.
The author waxes both didactic and nostalgic in this genial hybrid of a volume. Part anthology, part memoir, part reporter’s handbook, part stargazing, this neither challenges nor offends and for the most part instructs and delights. It begins with Ross’s tributes to her principal influences, including Turgenev, Salinger, Hemingway, editor William Shawn, and her older sister Helen, whom Ross thanks very early on—and in the last sentence. She discusses her professional habits and principles: never use a tape recorder, write as clearly as possible, select only subjects of personal interest, employ as much dialogue as possible. When it all falls together well, she states, “It’s sort of like having sex.” Ross declines to enter the debate about the “old” New Yorker vs. the “new”; she loved Old Guard (Shawn, Harold Ross—no relation), and she has flattering things to say about former and current editors Tina Brown and David Remnick. In fact, it’s hard to find a discouraging word anywhere. The author divides her text loosely, a happy decision that permits her to revisit old stories and old friends on her own terms. Thus we read about a wide variety of personalities, from Adlai Stevenson (whom she greatly admired) to Bill Clinton (“I loved him and let him know it”) to Robert Kennedy, John McEnroe, Benny Goodman, Norman Mailer, John and Anjelica Huston, Charlie Chaplin, Lorraine Hansberry, Sidney Poitier, the Redgraves, Robin Williams, Lorne Michaels, Francis Ford Coppola, and others. Most of the previously published selections are short, and Ross provides interesting commentary about each piece and its subject. “Facts are wondrous things,” she concludes. “When you stick to them, no other writing can beat reporting.”
A reminder that many fascinating folk reside on Memory Lane.Pub Date: June 1, 2002
ISBN: 1-58243-109-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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